From Standing Rock to Maui

SUBHEAD: We are like the Dakota Sioux fighting to protect the Missouri River because Water is Life.

By Jonathan Greenberg on 25 March 2017 for Maui Independent -
(http://mauiindependent.org/native-wisdom-water-protector-alika-atay-on-the-power-of-we-the-people/)


Image above: From ().

In November, organic farmer Alika Atay, the grassroots leader of Hawaii’s ʻĀina Protector’s United effort was elected to the Maui County Council in a stunning upset (described in detail here).
Atay was the lead plaintiff in the SHAKA Movement’s federal lawsuit over the invalidation of Maui’s successful GMO Moratorium initiative in 2014.

This Maui Independent In Their Own Words features the barrel-chested, deep-voiced leader known to many Native Hawai’ians as “Uncle Alika.” His words are from interviews conducted during the past year by journalist Jonathan Greenberg.

Protect Our Water

I stand to protect our drinking water. We are very similar to our brothers and sisters in the Dakotas fighting to protect the Missouri River because Ola Ka Wai: Water is life.

Aina Protectors United is like-minded people who have been raised under the values of Aloha Aina (love of the land). Everything we do has a connection to the earth and our resources. Given our responsibility under Aloha Aina, we must stand up and protect.

I am speaking for the land, for the water, for the children. We all have a responsibility to stand up for future generations. The importance of native water rights and the ʻĀina Protectors movement is to allow those of us who are of the ʻĀina to understand that this is our indigenous right that we are born with.

We need to stand up and say enough of the oppression.

For me and the people, we are all kanakas. If they poison us, if they allow this to continue, they are creating cultural ethno genocide. They are slowly killing us, the kanaka–Hawaiians and my children and my future descendants. If we die or if we get sick and this place gets polluted, where else do we go? We don’t have anywhere else to go in the world to call our homeland.

This is our homeland. And as Kanaka Maoli, as indigenous people of this land, we cannot allow corporations such as Monsanto to be more important than the health and welfare of our people.

We are into into grassroots democracy. Grassroots democracy comes from the ground up, from the indigenous, spiritual, and cultural level. It says we will live the way we want to live.

My involvement with this movement began 40 years ago, when agrochemical companies sprayed DDT onto their plants, like the pineapple plantations. After soaking the plants, the DDT soaked the soil, and after soaking the soil, it went down and hit our water aquifer. It tainted our drinking water well until we could no longer drink fresh water from the well. Forty years later that well is still tainted. We cannot drink that water. It is still tainted.

Monsanto fields are only 40 feet above sea level. We ran into a Monsanto field and saw their spray board. It said they sprayed a 100-acre field four times a day, and the next day, five times a day, the very next day four times. With different chemicals.

You drench the fields, and then you get a big rain. The earth becomes a wet sponge and gets saturated, and all that chemical poison gets pushed down. The question is not if it’s going to hit our water table. The question is if they keep this up unchecked, when will it hit our water table to also make it unsafe for us to be drinking fresh water?

I believe this is about water and the pesticides that affect water. I am concerned with the drenching of our land with pesticides and the effect this has on our water. We live on an island and must protect our sacred water.

We have to look at the damage heavy chemical pesticides are doing to the soil and the aquifer. Not only what affects us now but more so the long-term future concerns. What kind of water will our future generations have to drink?

Look at what our experience has been for the last two years against the biotech pesticide companies. During the [GMO Moratorium Initiative] contest, there was big, big involvement of organized corporate money, spending close to $8 million.

Yet the people voted yes, and the people defeated them. The big lesson was the power of the people; what was victorious was organized people.

If You Are Not at the Table, You Are On the Menu

If you are not at the table, you are on the menu.
Whatever community you are, whatever country you are, you’ve got to open your eyes and be at the table.

We have that power. We the people can organize ourselves to stand up against them and say, “This is wrong.” Yes we call out Aloha ʻĀina; love the land. But it is not as simple as that. You cannot interpret it just by the words. You have to understand the values that are in there. How do you practice Aloha ʻĀina values? By protecting our natural resources, protecting our water.

Right now, with this [November Council election] victory, we are setting the cornerstone of the house that we want to live in. It is up to the rest of the village to be involved in the construction of the house.

I am looking forward to setting policy, regulations, and enforcement that will protect our natural resources. We need our entire village to be involved to solve these problems.

We live on an island, and our job is to protect this aquifer, our sacred water. There is a wave of momentum for change to protect our Maui way of living. Everyone sees the handwriting on the wall and is concerned with protecting the environment, which also protects our tourist economy.

Our Responsibility to Become Great Ancestors

Our ancestors, my ancestors, they lived here for 1,500 years. They lived here organically, naturally.

They didn’t live with chemical poisons. Then my ancestors handed it over to me: green pristine, clean, and sacred.

And in a very short period, westernization came in and almost killed us. Almost. Unless we come in and say, “Nuff already. This ain’t happening.”

We want to become great ancestors.

I don’t want to pass on and have my descendants say, “My tutu—he didn’t do a good job by giving us this place all polluted.”

We have a responsibility to our future. That’s why we do this.



Video above: "Water Protector Alika Atay on People Power" From original article. (https://youtu.be/Gu5dZ1_agNY). 

See also:
Ea O Ka Aina: Lessons from Standing Rock 3/14/17
Ea O Ka Aina: Standing Rock will not go away 2/24/17
Ea O Ka Aina: DAPL fight not over yet 2/19/17
Ea O Ka Aina: Tribes divest DAPL bankers 2/13/17
Ea O Ka Aina: Army Corps okays DAPL easement 2/8/17
Ea O Ka Aina: Trump orders go on DAPL EIS 2/3/17
Ea O Ka Aina: Trump orders shale oil pipelines 1/24/17
Ea O Ka Aina: Missile launcher at Standing Rock 1/19/17
Ea O Ka Aina: Lockdown at Trans-Pecos Pipeline 1/10/17
Ea O Ka Aina: Standing Rock has changed us 12/9/16
Ea O Ka Aina: As Standing Rock celebrates... 12/5/16
Ea O Ka Aina: Army Corps denies DAPL easement 12/4/16
Ea O Ka Aina: My Whole Heart is With You 12/2/16
Ea O Ka Aina: The Loving Containment of Courage 12/1/16
Ea O Ka Aina: The Beginning is Near 12/1/16
Ea O Ka Aina: Obama hints at DAPL rerouting 11/3/16
Ea O Ka Aina: Obama hints at DAPL rerouting 11/3/16
Ea O Ka Aina: New military attack on NODAPL 11/3/16
Ea O Ka Aina: How to Support NoDAPL 11/3/16
Ea O Ka Aina: Standing Rock has changed us 12/9/16
Ea O Ka Aina: As Standing Rock celebrates... 12/5/16
Ea O Ka Aina: Army Corps denies easement 12/4/16
Ea O Ka Aina: My Whole Heart is With You 12/2/16
Ea O Ka Aina: The Loving Containment of Courage 12/1/16
Ea O Ka Aina: The Beginning is Near 12/1/16
Ea O Ka Aina: Feds to shutdown NoDAPL Camp 11/25/16
Ea O Ka Aina: NoDAPL people are going to die 11/23/16
Ea O Ka Aina: Hundreds of vets to join NoDAPL 11/22/16
Ea O Ka Aina: Obama must support Standing Rock 11/21/16
Ea O Ka Aina: Trump's pro oil stance vs NoDaPL 11/15/16
Ea O Ka Aina: Kauai NoDAPL Demonstration 11/12/16
Ea O Ka Aina: Obama to Betray Standing Rock 11/12/16
Ea O Ka Aina: Trump impact on Standing Rock 11/12/16
Ea O Ka Aina: Ann Wright on Standing Rock 11/8/16
Ea O Ka Aina: Turning Point at Standing Rock 11/6/16
Ea O Ka Aina: Jackson Browne vs DAPL owner 11/5/16
Democracy Now: Boycott of DAPL Owner's Music Festival
Ea O Ka Aina: World responds to NoDAPL protests 11/5/16
Ea O Ka Aina: NoDAPL victory that was missed 11/5/16
Ea O Ka Aina: DAPL hid discovery of Sioux artifacts 11/5/16
Ea O Ka Aina: Dakota Access Pipeline will leak 11/5/16
Ea O Ka Aina: Route of the Dakota Access Pipeline 11/4/16
Ea O Ka Aina: Sanders calls for stopping DAPL 11/4/16
Ea O Ka Aina: Obama hints at DAPL rerouting 11/3/16
Ea O Ka Aina: New military attack on NODAPL 11/3/16
Ea O Ka Aina: How to Support NoDAPL 11/3/16
Unicorn Riot: Tweets from NoDAPL 11/2/16
Ea O Ka Aina: Standing Rock & the Ballot Box 10/31/16
Ea O Ka Aina: NoDAPL reclaim new frontline 10/24/16
Ea O Ka Aina: How far will North Dakota go? 10/23/16
Ea O Ka Aina: Amy Goodman "riot" charge dropped 10/17/16
Ea O Ka Aina: Amy Goodwin to face "Riot Charge" 10/16/16
Ea O Ka Aina: Shutdown of all tar sand pipelines 10/11/16
Ea O Ka Aina: Why Standing Rock is test for Oabama 10/8/16
Ea O Ka Aina: Why we are Singing for Water 10/8/16
Ea O Ka Aina: Labor's Dakota Access Pipeline Crisis 10/3/16
Ea O Ka Aina: Standing Firm for Standing Rock 10/3/16
Ea O Ka Aina: Contact bankers behind DAPL 9/29/16
Ea O Ka Aina: NoDAPL demo at Enbridge Inc 9/29/16
Ea O Ka Aina: Militarized Police raid NoDAPL 9/28/16
Ea O Ka Aina: Stop funding of Dakota Access Pipeline 9/27/16
Ea O Ka Aina: UN experts to US, "Stop DAPL Now!" 9/27/16
Ea O Ka Aina: No DAPL solidarity grows 9/21/16
Ea O Ka Aina: This is how we should be living 9/16/16
Ea O Ka Aina: 'Natural Capital' replacing 'Nature' 9/14/16
Ea O Ka Aina: The Big Difference at Standing Rock 9/13/16
Ea O Ka Aina: Jill Stein joins Standing Rock Sioux 9/10/16
Ea O Ka Aina: Pipeline temporarily halted 9/6/16
Ea O Ka Aina: Native Americans attacked with dogs 9/5/16
Ea O Ka Aina: Mni Wiconi! Water is Life! 9/3/16
Ea O Ka Aina: Sioux can stop the Pipeline 8/28/16
Ea O Ka Aina: Officials cut water to Sioux 8/23/16 

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